To be shocked at the rising price of food?

[AbsentmindedWoman]

I do a fair bit of my grocery shopping at Aldi and Lidl, but dip into all the big stores very regularly as well for certain items I like when they are on offer to stock up, and also for yellow sticker bargains.

My bill has gone up by about a quarter in the last six months or so for the same products. Aldi and Lidl don't seem all that cheap anymore - although to be fair I don't know what doing my 'main' shop at Sainsbury's or Tesco or Morrisons.

I'm a little shocked at just how quickly the prices are going up. I knew they were going to rise but kind of expected a much more gradual increase. Silly me.

Has anyone else felt like this? Or does anyone else feel alarmed at not knowing when prices will level out and slow down?

Smoked salmon, cherries and butter have gone up in price? I predict a riot of angry Waitrose shoppers throwing Duchy eggs

And a run on quinoa.

notangelina, those prices are for paracetamol suppositories, not oral.

but had naively thought supermarkets would have absorbed rising costs for a bit longer.
Why?
Why would profit making companies subsidise the stupidity of their customers?

It's Tuna that gets me!! Cannot believe the price of it!

The increase in the price of butter is seriously crippling small businesses who buy butter by the tonne. I know of a few round here who are teetering on bankruptcy because of it.

HipToBeSquare
They're salaries are also higher. I work in HR and those hired into other EU countries earn more than their equivalents in the UK.
We are an international company with over 30,000 employees so not small.

I'm not sure that's true across the board. I was a PA in London for an energy company, mid level, and earned £38k. I'm in Dublin and paid €30k - current exchange rate means I should be earning €42,500k. minimum wage is £7.50 in the UK, equal to €8.43. Ok the minimum wage in Ireland is €9.55 but tax rates are higher.

As well as Brexit/exchange rates, what happens when all the below-minimum-wage () EU workers stop being available for agricultural work? (As some already are) Produce prices will go through the roof.

For anybody who can be arsed to do a bit of research/shopping around, look up prices on www.mysupermarket.co.uk/ & do a bit of shopping around (or get a big delivery from a different place each week/month & top up from the non-delivery places. Aldi & Lidl are still pretty well priced!)

Lurpak was 2 for 6 in waitrose so I bought 10 tubs!

The lurpak in tubs isn't butter.

Tuna is a lot more expensive than it was a few years ago but I haven't noticed any increase since brexit

NotTheQueen I was referring to degree qualified roles (which I should have stipulated). There is also demand versus availability for candidates. I would think that a good PA while worth their weight in gold, probably easier to find than the skilled candidates we hire.

I won't complain about the price od butter as long as dairy farmers can eke out a little bit of profit. In fact I won't complain about the price of any UK farmed product going up. Uk farmers have been shafted by the EU for long enough. Every single farmer I know voted leave. The ones on countryfile blathering on weren't 'proper' farmers. More massive land owners with people to farm for them.

The UK needs to have a more sustainable market. We need to grow and produce more of our own food to be sold in the UK. Not rely on pork from Denmark, salad from spain and wine from france. We need to eat seasonally and reduce air miles and the amount of money leaving the UK for stuff we can do in the UK.

It might mean we can't have strawberries 365 days a year. Or 8 litres of milk for £2. Or courgettes in December. Or we might only have meat 3 or 4 times a week. Or we might go back to white vinegar and bicarb of soda for cleaning.

But unlesa we all change our ways it isn't an economic crisis we need to worry about, it's an environmental crisis.

"So we will pay similar prices to those in France and Spain? Get real, our food prices are low LOW compared to other European countries. Sorry to offend, but that's the price of eating proper food. Most Europeans spend about one third of disposable (or after tax) income on the family food bill."

they spend much less on housing and public transport though.

"Every single farmer I know voted leave."
Turkeys >>> Christmas

Butter in Tesco went up 75p in one week last week. It had already crept up 75p over the previous 6 months.

We've not left yet. There's still chance to stop this.

The UK can't sustain itself food wise. You need approx 1 acre of land to feed 1 person per year. The UK has 43 million acres of agricultural land and a population of 65 million.

Frouby - I agree with you a fair amount. It is crazy to buy mange tout flown in from Mexico, and expect to only pay a couple of quid for it. And some prices have definitely been kept artificially low by the supermarkets, so when they start charging "proper" prices it comes as a real shock.

But the UK doesn't have the infrastructure to become largely self-sufficient in the next 18 months. We will hit a really hard cliff edge in our food supplies with a No Deal Brexit.

Yep, prices going up steadily here too.

The quality is bad in the UK though, especially in England. I really notice how much better the ingredients are in ROI and France etc.

frouby
Funny
On another thread I said that most farmers voted for Brexit
and was shouted down by folks who said it was not so

WTO Rules has nothing to do with tariff percentages
it has Everything to do with clearance times

When I worked in Dover Docks before the single market, we had parking for 5,000 lorries as they went through customs

that land has all been "repurposed"
the tunnel never had that land

so its "Operation Stack" with bells on 24/7 / 365
or 48 hour customs clearances again
which will add around 10% to the cost of all imports at the very, very least

Berxiters can shout all they like but none I've heard from can refute the "Dover numbers"

Oh for god sake I'm sick of hearing about brexit been at fault. It is greedy companies full stop and the natural inflation that happens every year and has done since
currency was invented.
Can you blame brexit for price rises in the 30s, the ,40s, 50s. No well then you can't blame it noe

Blahblah, except it's not disputed why prices have risen. It's a fact. So yes you can blame it on Brexit.

Your way of thinking is really weird. Because there were rises in other decades it's can't be Brexit now?😆

Smudgestars if you are a turkey you are fucked anyway. Voting for what has happened for 2000 years won't change that. It happens regardless.

The farmers I have discussed brexit with say the current model is unsustainable. They can't survive on subsidies. Neither do they want to. They want to farm and turn a profit on their produce. They dont want paying to not farm ( set aside land). Neither do they want to compete with the EU farmers whose welfare standards are a million miles away from the UKs because EU law is open to interpretation. They want to farm ethically and for profit.

But when you compare the price of British pork to Danish pork the British is a luxury because of the welfare standards. Despite the air miles.

The UK is over populated and under farmed. It doesn't compete on farming, fishing, mining. It's primary sectors are fucked. Secondary sectors are fucked while the £1 is still high as it can't import materials cheap enough to manufacture. Which impacts on what we can sell and service.

Our tertiary industry is heavily regulated like farming welfare standards. So we can't compete with asia etc. Especially as we can't produce our own material to manufacture. And technology is heavily dominated by Asia.

So we don't produce raw materials. Can't afford to manufacture products. Can't compete on the service market. Can't keep up with technology.

I voted remain because I know the cliff edge is coming. But I am hoping we claw our way back from the edge with reduced immigration, increased migration and a weaker £1.